CHAPTER II.
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
CHAPTER VII.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHAPTER IX.
CHAPTER X.
CHAPTER XI.
CHAPTER XII.
CHAPTER XIII.
CHAPTER XIV.
CHAPTER XV.
CHAPTER XVI.
CHAPTER XVII.
CHAPTER I.
One evening in May, 1888, the Café des Écoles was even more crowded and
more noisy than usual. The marble-topped tables were wet with beer and
the din was appalling. Someone shouted to make himself heard.
“Any more news from the Salon?”
“Yes,” said Elliott, “Thaxton’s in with a number three. Rhodes is out
and takes it hard. Clifford’s out too, and takes it—”
A voice began to chant:
Je n’sais comment faire,
Comment concillier
Ma maitresse et mon père,
Le Code et Bullier.
“Drop it! Oh, drop it!” growled Rhodes, and sent a handful of billiard
chalk at the singer.
Mr Clifford returned a volley of the Café spoons, and continued:
Mais c’que je trouve de plus bête,
C’est qu’ i’ faut financer
Avec ma belle galette,
J’aimerai mieux m’amuser.
Several other voices took up the refrain, lamenting the difficulty of
reconciling their filial duties with balls at Bullier’s, and protesting
that they would rather amuse themselves than consider financial
questions. Rhodes sipped his curaçoa sulkily.
“The longer I live in the Latin Quarter,” he said to his neighbor, “the
less certain I feel about a place of future punishment. It would be so
tame after this.” Then, reverting to his grievance, he added, “The
slaughter this year at the Salon is awful.”
Reginald Gethryn stirred nervously but did not speak.
“Have a game, Rex?” called Clifford, waving a cue.
Gethryn shook his head, and reaching for a soiled copy of the _Figaro,_
glanced listlessly over its contents. He sighed and turned his paper
impatiently. Rhodes echoed the sigh.
“What’s at the theaters?”
“Same as last week, excepting at the Gaieté. They’ve put on ‘La Belle
Hélène’ there.”
“Oh! Belle Hélène!” cried Clifford.
Tzing! la! la! Tzing! la! la!
C’est avec ces dames qu’ Oreste
Fait danser l’argent de Papa!
Rhodes began to growl again.
“I shouldn’t think you’d feel like gibbering that rot tonight.”
Clifford smiled sweetly and patted him on the head. “Tzing! la! la! My
shot, Elliott?”
“Tzing! la! la!” laughed Thaxton, “That’s Clifford’s biography in three
words.”
Clifford repeated the refrain and winked impudently at the pretty
bookkeeper behind her railing. She, alas! returned it with a blush.
Gethryn rose restlessly and went over to another table where a man,
young, but older than himself, sat, looking comfortable.
“Braith,” he began, trying to speak indifferently, “any news of my
fate?”
The other man finished his beer and then answered carelessly, “No.” But
catching sight of Gethryn’s face he added, with a laugh:
“Look here, Rex, you’ve got to stop this moping.”
“I’m not moping,” said Rex, coloring up.
“What do you call it, then?” Braith spoke with some sharpness, but
continued kindly, “You know I’ve been through it all. Ten years ago,
when I sent in my first picture, I confess to you I suffered the
torments of the damned until—”
“Until?”
“Until they sent me my card. The color was green.”
“But I thought a green card meant ‘not admitted.’”
“It does. I received three in three years.”
“Do you mean you were thrown out three years in succession?”
Braith knocked the ashes out of his pipe. “I gave up smoking for those
three years.”
“You?”
Braith filled his pipe tenderly. “I was very poor,” he said.
“If I had half your sand!” sighed Rex.
“You have, and something more that the rest of us have not. But you are
very young yet.”
This time Gethryn colored with surprise and pleasure. In all their long
and close friendship Braith had never before given him any other
encouragement than a cool, “Go ahead!”
He continued: “Your curse thus far has been want of steady application,
and moreover you’re too easily scared. No matter what happens this
time, no knocking under!”
“Oh, I’m not going to knock under. No more is Clifford, it seems,” Rex
added with a laugh, as Clifford threw down his cue and took a step of
the devil’s quadrille.
“Oh! Elliott!” he crowed, “what’s the matter with you?”
Elliott turned and punched a sleepy waiter in the ribs.
“Emile—two bocks!”
The waiter jumped up and rubbed his eyes. “What is it, monsieur?” he
snapped.
Elliott repeated the order and they strolled off toward a table. As
Clifford came lounging by, Carleton said, “I hear you lead with a
number one at the Salon.”
“Right, I’m the first to be fired.”
“He’s calm now,” said Elliott, “but you should have seen him yesterday
when the green card came.”
“Well, yes. I discoursed a little in several languages.”
“After he had used up his English profanity, he called the Jury names
in French, German and Spanish. The German stuck, but came out at last
like a cork out of a bottle—”
“Or a bung out of a barrel.”
“These comparisons are as offensive as they are unjust,” said Clifford.
“Quite so,” said Braith. “Here’s the waiter with your beer.”
“What number did you get, Braith?” asked Rhodes, who couldn’t keep his
mind off the subject and made no pretense of trying.
“Three,” answered Braith.
There was a howl, and all began to talk at once.
“There’s justice for you!” “No justice for Americans!” “Serves us right
for our tariff!” “Are Frenchmen going to give us all the advantages of
their schools and honors besides while we do all we can to keep their
pictures out of our markets?”
“No, we don’t, either! Tariff only keeps out the sweepings of the
studios—”
“If there were no duty on pictures the States would be flooded with
trash.”
“Take it off!” cried one.
“Make it higher!” shouted another.
“Idiots!” growled Rhodes. “Let ’em flood the country with bad work as
well as good. It will educate the people, and the day will come when
all good work will stand an equal chance—be it French or be it
American.”
“True,” said Clifford, “Let’s all have a bock. Where’s Rex?”
But Gethryn had slipped out in the confusion. Quitting the Café des
Écoles, he sauntered across the street, and turning through the Rue de
Vaugirard, entered the rue Monsieur le Prince. He crossed the dim
courtyard of his hôtel, and taking a key and a candle from the lodge of
the Concierge, started to mount the six flights to his bedroom and
studio. He felt irritable and fagged, and it did not make matters
better when he found, on reaching his own door, that he had taken the
wrong key. Nor did it ease his mind to fling the key over the banisters
into the silent stone hallway below. He leaned sulkily over the railing
and listened to it ring and clink down into the darkness, and then,
with a brief but vigorous word, he turned and forced in his door with a
crash. Two bull pups which had flown at him with portentous growls and
yelps of menace now gamboled idiotically about him, writhing with
anticipation of caresses, and a gray and scarlet parrot, rudely
awakened, launched forth upon a musical effort resembling the song of a
rusty cart-wheel.
“Oh, you infernal bird!” murmured the master, lighting his candle with
one hand and fondling the pups with the other. “There, there, puppies,
run away!” he added, rolling the ecstatic pups into a sort of dog
divan, where they curled themselves down at last and subsided with
squirms and wriggles, gurgling affection.
Gethryn lighted a lamp and then a cigarette. Then, blowing out the
candle, he sat down with a sigh. His eyes fell on the parrot. It
annoyed him that the parrot should immediately turn over and look at
him upside down. It also annoyed him that “Satan,” an evil-looking
raven, was evidently preparing to descend from his perch and worry “Mrs
Gummidge.”
“Mrs Gummidge” was the name Clifford had given to a large sad-eyed
white tabby who now lay dozing upon a panther skin.
“Satan!” said Gethryn. The bird checked his sinister preparations and
eyed his master. “Don’t,” said the young man.
Satan weighed his chances and came to the conclusion that he could
swoop down, nip Mrs Gummidge, and get back to his bust of Pallas
without being caught. He tried it, but his master was too quick for
him, and foiled, he lay sullenly in Gethryn’s hands, his two long claws
projecting helplessly between the brown fists of his master.
“Oh, you fiend!” muttered Rex, taking him toward a wicker basket, which
he hated. “Solitary confinement for you, my boy.”
“Double, double, toil and trouble,” croaked the parrot.
Gethryn started nervously and shut him inside the cage, a regal gilt
structure with “Shakespeare” printed over the door. Then, replacing the
agitated Gummidge on her panther skin, he sat down once more and
lighted another cigarette.
His picture. He could think of nothing else. It was a serious matter
with Gethryn. Admitted to the Salon meant three more years’ study in
Paris. Failure, and back he must go to New York.
The personal income of Reginald Gethryn amounted to the magnificent sum
of two hundred and fifty dollars. To this, his aunt, Miss Celestia
Gethryn, added nine hundred and fifty dollars more. This gave him a sum
of twelve hundred dollars a year to live on and study in Paris. It was
not a large sum, but it was princely when compared to the amount on
which many a talented fellow subsists, spending his best years in a
foul atmosphere of paint and tobacco, ill fed, ill clothed, scarcely
warmed at all, often sick in mind and body, attaining his first scant
measure of success just as his overtaxed powers give way.
Gethryn’s aunt, his only surviving relative, had recently written him
one of her ponderous letters. He took it from his pocket and began to
read it again, for the fourth time.
“You have now been in Paris three years, and as yet I have seen no
results. You should be earning your own living, but instead you are
still dependent upon me. You are welcome to all the assistance I can
give you, in reason, but I expect that you will have something to show
for all the money I expend upon you. Why are you not making a handsome
income and a splendid reputation, like Mr Spinder?”
The artist named was thirty-five and had been in Paris fifteen years.
Gethryn was twenty-two and had been studying three years.
“Why are you not doing beautiful things, like Mr Mousely? I’m told he
gets a thousand dollars for a little sketch.”
Rex groaned. Mr Mousely could neither draw nor paint, but he made
stories of babies’ deathbeds on squares of canvas with china angels
solidly suspended from the ceiling of the nursery, pointing upward, and
he gave them titles out of the hymnbook, which caused them to be bought
with eagerness by all the members of the congregation to which his
family belonged.
The letter proceeded:
“I am told by many reliable persons that three years abroad is more
than enough for a thorough art education. If no results are attained at
the end of that time, there is only one of two conclusions to be drawn.
Either you have no talent, or you are wasting your time. I shall wait
until the next Salon before I come to a decision. If then you have a
picture accepted and if it shows no trace of the immorality which is
rife in Paris, I will continue your allowance for three years more;
this, however, on condition that you have a picture in the Salon each
year. If you fail again this year, I shall insist upon your coming home
at once.”
Why Gethryn should want to read this letter four times, when one
perusal of it had been more than enough, no one, least of all himself,
could have told. He sat now crushing it in is hand, tasting all the
bitterness that is stored up for a sensitive artist tied by fate to an
omniscient Philistine who feeds his body with bread and his soul with
instruction about art and behavior.
Presently he mastered the black mood which came near being too much for
him, his face cleared and he leaned back, quietly smoking. From the rug
rose a muffled rumbling where Mrs Gummidge dozed in peace. The clock
ticked sharply. A mouse dropped silently from the window curtain and
scuttled away unmarked.
The pups lay in a soft heap. The parrot no longer hung head downward,
but rested in his cage in a normal position, one eye fixed steadily on
Gethryn, the other sheathed in a bluish-white eyelid, every wrinkle of
which spoke scorn of men and things.
For some time Gethryn had been half-conscious of a piano sounding on
the floor below. It suddenly struck him now that the apartment under
his, which had been long vacant, must have found an occupant.
“Idiots!” he grumbled. “Playing at midnight! That will have to stop.
Singing too! We’ll see about that!”
The singing continued, a girl’s voice, only passably trained, but
certainly fresh and sweet.
Gethryn began to listen, reluctantly and ungraciously. There was a
pause. “Now she’s going to stop. It’s time,” he muttered. But the piano
began again—a short prelude which he knew, and the voice was soon in
the midst of the Dream Song from “La Belle Hélène.”
Gethryn rose and walked to his window, threw it open and leaned out. An
April night, soft and delicious. The air was heavy with perfume from
the pink and white chestnut blossoms. The roof dripped with moisture.
Far down in the dark court the gas-jets flickered and flared. From the
distance came the softened rumble of a midnight cab, which, drawing
nearer and nearer and passing the hôtel with a rollicking rattle of
wheels and laughing voices, died away on the smooth pavement by the
Luxembourg Gardens. The voice had stopped capriciously in the middle of
the song. Gethryn turned back into the room whistling the air. His eye
fell on Satan sitting behind his bars in crumpled malice.
“Poor old chap,” laughed the master, “want to come out and hop around a
bit? Here, Gummidge, we’ll remove temptation out of his way,” and he
lifted the docile tabby, who increased the timbre of her song to an
ecstatic squeal at his touch, and opening his bedroom door, gently
deposited her on his softest blankets. He then reinstated the raven on
his bust of Pallas, and Satan watched him from thence warily as he
fussed about the studio, sorting brushes, scraping a neglected palette,
taking down a dressing gown, drawing on a pair of easy slippers,
opening his door and depositing his boots outside. When he returned the
music had begun again.
“What on earth does she mean by singing at a quarter to one o’clock?”
he thought, and went once more to the window. “Why—that is really
beautiful.”
Oui! c’est un rêve, Oui! c’est un rêve doux d’amour.
La nuit lui prête son mystère,
Il doit finir—il doit finir avec le jour.
The song of Hélène ceased. Gethryn leaned out and gazed down at the
lighted windows under his. Suddenly the light went out. He heard
someone open the window, and straining his eyes, could just discern the
dim outline of a head and shoulders, unmistakably those of a girl. She
had perched herself on the windowsill. Presently she began to hum the
air, then to sing it softly. Gethryn waited until the words came again:
Oui, c’est un rêve—
and then struck in with a very sweet baritone:
Oui, c’est un rêve—
She never moved, but her voice swelled out fresh and clear in answer to
his, and a really charming duet came to a delightful finish. Then she
looked up. Gethryn was reckless now.
“Shall it be, then, only a dream?” he laughed. Was it his fate that
made him lean out and whisper, “Is it, then, only a dream, Hélène?”
There was nothing but the rustling of the chestnut branches to answer
his folly. Not another sound. He was half inclined to shut his window
and go in, well satisfied with the silence and beginning to feel
sleepy. All at once from below came a faint laugh, and as he leaned out
he caught the words:
“Paris, Hélène bids you good night!”
“Ah, Belle Hélène!”—he began, but was cut short by the violent opening
of a window opposite.
“Bon dieu de bon dieu!” howled an injured gentleman. “To sleep is
impossible, tas d’imbeciles!—”
And Hélène’s window closed with a snap.